past month.
Spent yesterday in San Antonio exploring with Jim and Jon (and clare
after she got off work). It was overcast and slightly rainy in the
70's yesterday and low humidity. That might sound bad to you but it
was just fine to me!
I actually started out the day with some errands first. Drove around
and found a laundromat to do some wash after two weeks (was sort of
running out of clean clothes there). The best thing that happened at
the laundromat was that this really old dude who was dressed like a
cowboy walked up to me and said, "Ain't ya glad that every day isn't
warsh day?" It was pretty awesome.
After that, I did something that I had wanted to do all trip but never
had the guts to. I knew my parents would disapprove, but I really
wanted to and found a time and place where it could be done for the
right price. That's right...I got a haircut (gotcha! Although my
parents really do disapprove of me cutting my hair. My father will
routinely say 'don't come back until your hair falls to your
shoulders' to me whenever I visit). Anyway, the nice texan lady who
cut my hair did give me some good advice on getting through awkward
periods with growing hair out so we shall see.
After that, went back to clare's, quickly got ready, and was on the
way out to explore San Antonio with Jon and Jim. It felt weird to
explore a new city with other people- I had been used to doing it with
myself for most of a month!
We started with touring the 5 Texas missions- espada, San Juan
capistrano, San Jose, concepcion, and San Antonio (the last one you
might know better as the alamo). The missions were all built in the
1700s in the usual practice of forcing natives to follow "civilized"
European practices (won't get into the politics of it here). They are
still old buildings with history and each except for the Alamo still
has a church that is a parish today.
The missions are all located on a 12 mile route so they were fairly
quick to get to by car (some choose to walk or bike between them, but
not us!). While the first mission (espada) is in the middle of
nowhere, the last (the Alamo) is right in the heart of downtown.
The Alamo itself was impressive but did have the slight twinge of
faint tourism. Also, the Alamo seems to be one of those historic
places whose actual details are lost in patriotic fervor. For
instance, the Alamo was abandoned as a mission almost a hundred years
before it's use in the war for Mexican independece. And the famous
arched ceiling that is so recognizable wasn't added until decades
after the famous seige. But I digress. It was still neat to see and it
was intersting to note that while the other missions are run by the
national park service, the Alamo is operated by the Texas daughters
league or something like that.
After the alamo, we went souvenir shopping, as Jon was trying to find
identical rings for him and his brothers. No such luck, although we
did get to see every tacky Texas souvenir you could think of (and some
you couldn't).
Also, we kept seeing people by the hundreds wearing these green
lanyard nametags and wandering around. We finally stopped to ask who
they were, and it was a national AA convention. They were all over the
place, and there was a ton of merchandise being marketed and sold to
them. I was impressed by the size and scale of the conference, and it
must have been a boon for the economy here (yes, except for the bars).
After that, we headed back to clare's and waited her to get off work.
We then all went downtown to the riverwalk. This is the famous part of
san Antonio with shops and restaurants located directly on the river
(like 15 ft below normal downtown stuff) and lots of scenery,
walkways, and boats. It is a fun place to walk around and take in the
sights, and we found a British pub to eat dinner and hang out at.
Good times in San Antonio- off to corpus Christi today!
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